


Season to Taste

by Nope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-27
Updated: 2003-03-27
Packaged: 2018-12-23 10:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11987886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Even the House Elves are hungry.





	Season to Taste

_Sero venientibus ossa_

Even the House Elves are hungry.

 

No date. No time. No sun. No food. Everyone else going mad. Tried to stop Ginny making effigies out of the teachers' ashes but driven off by Cho. Retreated to door to watch Ginny, naked on her knees, pulling at the remains of her hair, crooning wordlessly. Weird half formed shapes before her in the haze, like snowmen in negative. Quidditch Pitch still burning. Castle wards still impenetrable. Everything still. Hogwarts no longer moves. Flies, caught in amber. Search offices next, personal collections. Have exhausted restricted section. Intended to stay holed up in Library but couldn't stand the noises. The books are restless again.

 

Blaise is sat in the stairwell. Keeps coming back, coming here, sitting here. Wraps arms around legs and rocks. At the end, where the stairs stop halfway and the banister continues out over empty space. Won't answer me. Won't look. Whines if I get too close. Rocks. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and

 

Followed the Grey Lady for a while, down hollow halls, through empty rooms, till she finally took a corridor that isn't there anymore.

See, the ghosts leave a thin sheen of condensation on the walls when they pass through. If you time it just right, the stone is cool, yields liquid against your tongue. Too fast and ice burns your lips. Too slow and you're licking dust. Have to stay sharp. Focused.

Lately, even the ghosts seem thin.

 

Tickled the pear again. Tried to talk to the House Elves again.

"Can't leave," says Dobby again. "We is tied to the castle, we is."

"But you're free," I tell them again. "You're all free. You can do whatever you want."

Winky dry sobs. Again. Again. Again.

 

Draco isn't dead but looks like he should be, like someone took a blow torch to beauty, melting it right back to the bone. A skeleton. All twigs and paper skin, tight, translucent, paper skin. Should tear when he moves. Doesn't. Blonde wisps and blue veins, like mould. Sometimes he speaks and you can listen or you can watch strings of muscle tug at his jaw. Draco isn't dead, but he could be. Has long fingers, incredibly long, sharp, needle fingers, a piano player's hands, off white contrast against the red strands they're buried in. And even this has gotten old, stumbling on the two of them in gaunt shadows, Draco on tiptoe, pressed into the wall, making little whimpering, mewling moans, one hand tight on Ron's skull, other tracing the too sharp curve of Ron's spine, of too tall Ron bent half over, Draco pressed up and into him and looking past, always notices the audience, always, makes that little come on gesture with fluttering hands as Ron's teeth close audibly in the nape of Draco's neck.

 

Wizard paintings scream when they burn. But it gets cold at nights.

 

"It's okay," says Harry.

"We've faced worse," says Harry.

"You shouldn't worry," says Harry.

"Dumbledore will save us," says Harry. "You'll see."

Smile. Nod. Agree.

Don't say, actually, Harry, your ex-girlfriends are right now in the courtyard rubbing Dumbledore's remains into each other's skin.

Don't mention the remains of feathers hanging from Harry's mouth.

 

Found Vincent at Myrtle's, head in the bowl, pulling the flush over and over. Chain rattle echoes. Nothing happens of course. In the lake, the waste sinks and the fish rise, Hannah laughs and chokes and the thick green water turns Seamus blind.

 

Everyone avoids Dobby, stuttering and banging in the corner.

"Elf magic's different from wand magic," I tell them.

"You could get out," I tell them.

"You could leave," I tell them.

"Miss," says one, all ears and eyes and pillowcase, "when there's no one left to serve, what is happening to us?"

"You could serve yourselves."

Winky wails, staggers away. Her blouse and skirt are seeped in grease. The kitchen fire is belching heat.

The inevitable happens.

 

Dean's people settled in the Great Hall. The ceilings broken. Sometimes heat hazy sky and sometimes charred wood and blackened slate and nothing at all and things without names. Sick psychedelic flicker. Tables all overturned. Everyone squeezed into a tight claustrophobic tangle of overlapping hands and limbs and names. SeamusLauraMillicentColinGregoryKatieErnieLauraTerry... Dean sprawls in Dumbledore's chair, idly tossing Neville's fiery red Remembrall between sweat slick and charcoal skinned hands while Pansy goes down on him. Step into the Hall and all eyes are on at once, unblinking blowtorch, like cats, flowers to the sun, rabbits before headlights. Pansy's hot, dead eyes. Wet rise and fall. Follow out of sight and even after. Lingers like sunburn.

 

The smell is unexpected.

The screaming, yes, the running and the crashing and the banging and the boiling blood and searing, bubbling skin, but the smell--

And it's been so long since anyone smelt anything but their own numbing stink because water can't be wasted for anything so trivial--

And it's not like--

It was an accident. Not on purpose. And now Winky's dead, she's right there dead, not ashes dead like Dumbledore and Snape and Sprout or far away dead like Fred and George and Viktor but reach out and touch dead, reach out and grab. And the smell is--

Fresh. Succulent.

_Juicy._

 

and biting and swallowing and licking fingers clean and there's Dobby, there, right there, an ice steel flash and hot red explosions of pain and swallowing copper and a ripping and a tearing and in the black the squeaky grinding of teeth gnaw gnaw gnawing on bone

 

When there's no one left to serve, they serve themselves.


End file.
